


You and Me (are Alright)

by seekrest



Series: Maybe In Another Universe [15]
Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: (and a dumbass but that goes without saying), F/M, Fluff and Humor, Inspired by Definitely Maybe, Light Angst, M/M, Michelle Jones is a Little Shit, Not a love triangle fic, Peter Parker is a Good Dad, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Peter Parker is a Mess, Sprinkle in some Spider-Man and you got good ole Parker luck, but had a very complicated love life, canon nudged so far left it doesn’t even exist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28479417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekrest/pseuds/seekrest
Summary: “I think you should tell me the story of you and my mom.”Peter makes a face, looking over to her as he says, “Why do you keep saying ‘my mom’ like I’ve never met her?”“Well, because now you’re getting divorced, she’s mine. Not yours. And tell me the real story,” Maya says, squinting at him. “Not the ‘Oh we met, we fell in love and then we decided to take all that love and make a family’,” Maya says dramatically, Peter smirking as he sits up and walks over to her as she continues, “‘and that’s how we made you’.”“You know something, I am gonna tell you the real, true story of how me and your mother met.”Maya makes a face. “When I’m old enough?”“Yep.”She rolls her eyes, Peter barely holding back a laugh as she says, “Look, I know love isn’t a fairytale.”“Oh really?” Peter says, raising his eyebrow.“Really,” Maya says definitely, completely nonplussed in a way that’s the perfect iteration of her mother “Did you have another girlfriend before you met her?”“Maya.”“A boyfriend?”“Maya.”—A Definitely, Maybe AU
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Peter Parker/Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker/Johnny Storm
Series: Maybe In Another Universe [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711183
Comments: 26
Kudos: 56





	You and Me (are Alright)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spideysmjs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideysmjs/gifts).



“Parker! You got something delivered to your desk.” 

Peter takes a sip of the cheap coffee in his hand, one of the many features of working in an understaffed and underappreciated lab like Octavius Enterprises that make him reconsider his life plan once again as he nods to his co-worker. 

Peter has a good feeling of what will be waiting for him when he gets there, sighing when he sees the brown manilla envelope. 

He sits, setting down the coffee down that now rolls around in his gut as he picks it up - thumb gently tracing over the return address.

NELSON AND MURDOCK, ATTORNEY OF LAW

Peter makes a face before he opens it, knowing that he should be glad that Matt was doing this for him as a favor considering the prices it _could_ have been. 

The phrase JUDGEMENT OF DIVORCE is almost screaming at Peter as he sighs, thinking that of all the things he could’ve imagined on his wedding day, being part of the forty-six percent that don’t live happily ever after wasn’t one of them.

Then again, Peter thinks as his phone buzzes - he’d never been very good about planning out his life to begin with. 

He grabs his phone, glancing at who it could be before frowning as he picks it up.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Parker, hi. This is Mr. Owen at Bright Horizons. I was calling to see if you or your wife would be picking up Maya today from school.”

 _Ex-wife_ , Peter thinks - the divorce papers in front of him reminding him that sooner rather than later, he’d be a single man once again.

“Me, I’m actually just about to head over there. Is everything okay?” 

“I’m afraid that we had some kind of mix-up with the awareness forms we sent home the other day. We were originally going to have a discussion on bodily consent today but I’m afraid that the class took a different turn than we were expecting.”

Peter stands, wedging his phone between his neck and his face as he says, “What kind of different turn?”

Peter can hear the clamors of kids over the phone, his mind racing to figure out what could’ve set them off when Mr. Owen says, “Our sexual health and education class intended for the eighth graders was given to the fifth graders.”

Peter freezes, closing his eyes before sighing.

 _Shit_. 

* * *

“So people with penises--”

“Maya,” Peter says, glancing around their apartment lobby, “maybe use our inside voices.”

“But I have questions,” Maya says impatiently, Peter shooting a tired smile to the woman checking their mail as Peter pushes Maya into the elevator.

“And I will answer all of them, just--” he nudges her in, her curly brown hair dancing about as she giggles, Peter shaking his head as he chooses the button towards their floor. “Not now.”

“Marlie says her moms don’t have penises. Do they still have sex?”

Peter catches the surprised look from the woman in the lobby just as the elevator doors close, making a face towards Maya who looks up at him innocently.

“That’s-- not really anyone’s business but between Marlie’s moms,” Peter says, scrambling to make sure that he didn’t royally mess this conversation up. Eleven years in and he’d like to think he has this whole parenting thing down, but time as proven that when it comes to Parker luck - there was no certainty. 

“Mr. Owen said that to have a baby, a man has to stick his penis into a woman’s vagina. But Emile’s brother says he came from a test tube so how does--”

“Mr. Owen is talking about a very specific kind of sex, Maya. I’m a little surprised they still use that program,” Peter says with a sigh, rubbing his hand over his face and flashing back to his own archaic sex education classes - albeit being a few years older than Maya currently is. 

He _really_ should stop underestimating Parker luck. 

“Was _I_ a test tube baby?” Maya asks, Peter bringing his hand down and saying, “No.”

“So did you stick your penis into mom’s—”

“Yes,” Peter says, wanting to talk about literally anything other than this. “You know your mom and I have already talked to you about--”

“Mr. Owen also said that sometimes accidents happen,” she says, shifting her weight back and forth as Peter already anticipated her next question. “Was I an accident?”

“No,” Peter says quickly, kneeling down till he’s at Maya’s level. “Absolutely not. You were totally and completely wanted.”

Maya studies him with a look that’s so eerily reminiscent of her mother that it shoots a pang through his heart before she says, “Okay.”

Peter nods, pushing some of her curls past her face as he smiles, pressing a kiss to her forehead as the elevator doors ding. 

Maya is uncharacteristically quiet as they walk to his apartment, Peter trying and failing to make conversation about anything _other_ than the school’s failed sex education class until he finally gives up - giving Maya a bowl and some cereal for dinner and lamenting his terrible parenting decisions as he unpacks one of the many boxes he still has stacked all around.

It’s not till he’s halfway through his third one, debating whether or not he really needs to keep lugging around his old Midtown chemistry book when Maya pipes up, “I think you should tell me the story of you and my mom.”

Peter makes a face, looking over to her as he says, “Why do you keep saying ‘my mom’ like I’ve never met her?”

“Well, because now you’re getting divorced, she’s mine. Not yours.”

“Is that so?” Peter says with a smirk, Maya blinking at him with the same expression he’s seen dozens of times over the years when - as Maya put it - _her mom_ would give it. 

“And tell me the _real_ story,” Maya says, squinting at him. “Not the ‘Oh we met, we fell in love and then we decided to take _all_ that love and make a family’,” Maya says dramatically, Peter smirking as he sits up and walks over to her as she continues, “‘and that’s how we made _you_ ’.” 

“You know something, I _am_ gonna tell you the real, true story of how me and your mother met.” 

Maya makes a face. “When I’m old enough?”

“Yep.”

She rolls her eyes, Peter barely holding back a laugh as she says, “Look, I know love isn’t a fairytale.”

“Oh really?” Peter says, raising his eyebrow. 

“Really,” Maya says definitely, completely nonplussed in a way that’s the perfect iteration of her mother “Did you have another girlfriend before you met her?”

“Maya.”

“A boyfriend?” 

“ _Maya_.” 

“Come on,” Maya nearly whines, “tell me the truth.”

Peter looks at her, tapping his fingers against the cheap table he’d bought to serve as one of the only pieces of furniture he has in the apartment as he says, “I had two serious partners. Dated some other people but only the two serious ones before I married your mom.”

“Were you a thot?”

“ _Maya_ ,” Peter says, Maya just grinning at him as she takes a bite of her cereal before saying, “Mr. Owen--”

“Mr. Owen has a very traditional way of looking at things. We’re gonna have to have a talk about all this with your mom later,” Peter says, already dreading that conversation and the look on his wife’s - _ex-wife’s_ , he corrects - face when said conversation occurs. 

Maya for her part seems settled for the moment, peppering him randomly with questions as she finishes her dinner, does what little homework they gave them and gets ready for bed. 

“Were you mom's first boyfriend?” She asks as she brushes her teeth.

“Maya.”

“Probably not because mom is really pretty. Maybe it was some nerdy guy or maybe he was mean,” she says as Peter helps put her hair up.

“Or maybe, you were friends for the longest time,” Maya begins as Peter folds back her comforter, Maya diving into the bed before turning back up to him and shooting him a mischievous look as she continues, “and then _just_ when you were about to use your penis to—“

“Okay, goodnight Maya,” Peter says as he kisses her forehead, Maya still grinning at him and continuing as if he hadn’t said a word.

“You realized mom was the only one for you.”

Something clenches at Peter’s heart then, seeing right through her line of questioning. He knows just as well as her mom does that there’s no chance of them ever reconciling, that the divorce papers he’s been served were just the final nail in a coffin long since buried. 

“Bedtime,” Peter says, gently pushing Maya down as he smiles.

“No, dad. You still have to tell me the story of why you fell in love with her,” Maya says with a pout.

Peter laughs as he pushes a curl that’s fallen across her face. “I fell in love with her because she was smart and beautiful and fun.”

“So now she's stupid and ugly and boring?”

“Of course not—“

“Then what's the problem?” Maya asks, a frown on her face and a look that’s so eerily similar to her mother. 

Peter sighs, sitting up as fixes the covers so they’re right under Maya’s chin. 

“It's complicated.”

“Everything with you is so complicated,” she mutters, Peter thinking for a moment that maybe he’d won and that would be the end of it as he goes to stand. 

Considering whose daughter she was, Peter really shouldn’t have underestimated her. 

“I bet,” Maya says as she sits up, pushing the covers back, “that if you just told me the story, you'd realize that it's not complicated at all. That you just love her.”

Peter’s heart squeezes in his chest, sitting back down as he says gently, “Maya, I know this is tough for you, but what are you thinking? That I'm gonna tell you this story and it's gonna make everything better?”

He smiles, nudging at her cheek with his knuckle as he says, “It doesn't work that way.”

“Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't,” Maya says entirely too nonchalantly before she pounces, grabbing his hand. “Tell me and we'll find out.”

“No. Game over. It's time for bed,” Peter says, exhausted from the day and emotionally wrung out from having been served divorced papers at work. 

“No, it's not time for bed! It's time for you to tell me the story!” Maya whines, knowing that if her mother were in this situation that Maya wouldn’t put up nearly as much of a fight. 

Something Maya has to know too for how insistent she’s being. 

“Maya.”

“I need to know!” 

They stare at each other, Maya’s brown eyes boring into his and her little curls perfectly framing her face in a way that twists at Peter’s insides— knowing that he won’t be able to resist her anymore as he sighs and says, “Fine! Fine, okay. I’m gonna tell you the story.”

Maya beams, only for Peter to put a finger up.

“But I'm not telling you who your mom is.”

“Fine.”

“You're just gonna have to figure it out for yourself,” Peter says, knowing the options will be obvious once he’s told the story. 

“Good,” Maya banters back, every bit her mother’s daughter as much as he was here. 

“ _And_ I'm changing all the names and some of the facts, but I just decided that right now,” Peter says, bringing his hand down. “And _then_ we'll see how smart you are.”

“I like it. It's like a love story/mystery all in one.”

Peter laughs before saying, “Great. Sounds good. You ready?”

“No.”

“No?” Peter asks incredulously, Maya shaking her head only to readjust herself in bed. She sits up, folding the covers until she’s more comfortable and readjusting her hair so that her curls aren’t in her face.

“Take your time,” Peter deadpans. 

“I will,” Maya says in the same tone, Peter holding back a laugh.

“I know you will,” he says fondly, glad that even if his marriage hadn’t lasted that he still had the chance to be around the very best thing to have ever happened to him, spider bite included. 

He grabs a stuffed animal that had been moved around. “Princess pillow?”

“Thank you,” Maya says with a sweet smile, looking entirely too pleased with herself. 

“You bet.”

She settles, leaning back and folding her arms across her lap and looking so much like her mother it’s uncanny.

“Okay. I'm ready.”

Peter smiles, taking a deep breath before he thinks back to almost fifteen years ago— when he’d graduated college and felt like the world was right at his fingertips.

“It all started the summer after I graduated college…”


End file.
